Jinguashi Gold Museum
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The most significant tourist sight related to northern Taiwan’s mining industry history – and it comes with an extra dark element: the use of Allied POWs for forced labour in the mines during WWII under Imperial Japanese rule. This aspect is covered to some degree in the Gold Museum, though most of the exhibitions focus on mining in general and on the valuable end product, gold, in particular.
More background info: Mining in northern Taiwan and especially in and around the Ruifang District has a long history, but only took off on an industrial scale in the mid to late 19th century. Coal was the first large-scale mined commodity, followed by copper and gold.
Mining operations were received a real boost during the Japanese colonial era including in WWII. However, US air superiority had an adverse effect on mining operations, which became increasingly targeted in 1944. From 1942 Allied POWs were forced to work in the mines – see Kinkaseki! After the mines were seriously damaged during air raids, the prisoners were transferred to other camps in Taiwan.
After the war and the establishment of the ROC on Taiwan (see history), mining became state-owned. Due to a collapse in the world market price for copper, mining of this metal ceased in the 1980s. Coal mining continued a little longer but was also finished by the turn of the millennium.
While coal and copper mining came to an end, gold mining is apparently still going on, though no longer at the mine shafts by the Gold Museum. The deposits at Jinguashi were said to be amongst the richest in the world. Yet the end of coal and copper mining has meant a decline in the local population. However, these days people come here in droves as tourists, especially domestic ones.
The Gold Museum in Jinguashi is a key element in the touristification of northern Taiwan’s mining heritage (together with the Houtong Coal Mine Ecological Park, whereas the ruins of the nearby Suwang-dong refinery are more obscure). The Gold Museum first opened in 2004, initially under the name Gold Ecological Park (like at Houtong). It is run by the New Taipei City government.
What there is to see: This is actually more than one museum, a cluster of several buildings with separate exhibitions as well as open-air parts and a former mine tunnel.
I visited this place as part of an all-day tour from Taipei with a driver/guide (see below). But it was clear from the moment of our arrival that this is a popular sight with domestic tourists. Even though it was off-season in winter, and on a rather cool and drizzly day, the site was quite busy.
From the Gold Museum Tourist Information Center you have to walk a trail to the actual attractions. En route you pass a golden-painted sculpture depicting three miners, one rather muscular and bare-chested, another thinner and more clothed, together they are carrying an emaciated unconscious miner. Whether this is a reference to some mining accident or has something to do with the POW camp I could not determine.
We started our visit at the main Gold Museum building at the end of the trail. The exhibition inside starts with the section that is of most interest from a dark-tourism perspective, namely that about the Kinkaseki POW camp. There are a few artefacts but mostly it’s text-and-photo panels chronicling the suffering of the POWs, the hard labour they had to do, the malnourishment and deficient medical supplies and the cruel punishments meted out by the Japanese. The texts are in Chinese and English, and the translations are largely OK.
The rest of the exhibition is more about mining history in the area, particular methods and the physics and chemistry involved as well as aspects of everyday life in the miners’ community. Artefacts include various mining tools. On display too are various nuggets and traces of gold. But the absolute star exhibit is a genuine 220kg pure gold bullion. A large LED display to the side of the block indicates how much this block of gold would be worth on the market at any one day (a fortune, obviously, even if the day’s rate is not the highest). The gold bullion is protected by a thick glass display case. But two openings on the sides make it possible to stick an arm in and touch the gold – and most visitors queue up to do just that.
The other highlight here is the section of the Benshan Fifth Tunnel next to the main museum building that has been prepared for and opened to visitors. You are charged a separate small admission fee (see below) and there are many warning signs about the slippery and claustrophobic interior. You are fitted out with a protective miner’s helmet and have to sign a declaration form before they let you in. It may sound a bit overcautious but the helmet did come in useful for me: being rather tall I hit my head on the low rock or timber frames overhead repeatedly and was glad I had the protective hard hat. The inside of the mining tunnel is, however, well lit in most places and the ground wasn’t too tricky to negotiate. Only one section is an original tunnel, the rest was specifically drilled for tourist access. Inside are several lifelike installations with life-size miners doing all manner of work, having a break and a snack, holding their ears (when there were explosions for opening up new shaft sections) or manoeuvring ore trolleys. There are also a few text panels in Chinese and English, though the translation quality is sometimes rather shaky (as is often the case in Taiwan – cf. e.g. Green Island). Finally there’s the light at the other end of the tunnel and you head back into a building where you return your hard hat. Another couple of dummy miners depict an accident to one miner’s foot, probably to illustrate the dangerous nature of the mining work.
Back out in the open are also a few pieces of heavy machinery used in the mining operations, such as a Japanese-era compressor.
You then follow the rail tracks that eventually take you to another cluster of buildings with yet more exhibition space. There’s nothing of specific dark-tourism interest here, just more stories about the miners/the mining operations, displays of gold jewellery and an installation simulating the filtering of gold dust from water by means of gold pans. I won’t go into further details.
All in all, it’s an interesting enough museum, but the dark-tourism-specific elements are little more than an add-on here, in particular that section about the POWs in WWII. The mine tunnel was quite fun, but lots of the displays in the exhibition are only for those seriously into the subject matter of gold extraction and its uses. One such use had me raise eyebrows: bottles of Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor with gold particles floating inside. I’ve seen similar gold-laced liquors in Europe (not least the famous Danziger Goldwasser) but wouldn’t have expected that here. I never saw such bottles for sale anywhere, though, or I might even have been tempted …
Location: in the north-eastern corner of Taiwan, east of Ruifang District.
Google Maps locators:
Gold Museum Tourist Information Center: [25.1081, 121.8567]
Main museum building: [25.1062, 121.8595]
Access to Benshan Fifth Tunnel: [25.1066, 121.8591]
Benshan main mining site: [25.1016, 121.8588]
Access and costs: a bit out of the way but not too difficult to get to; inexpensive.
Details: I visited this place as part of a tour with an English-speaking driver/guide. The tour also included Wanli, Houtong Coal Mine Ecological Park, Kinkaseki POW camp memorial and Suwang-dong. As my wife and I had booked the same driver/guide for several days between Taitung and Taipei and paid the company who hired him in one lump sum, I cannot say how much just this part of the touring would have come to. My very (!) rough estimate would be in the region of 10,000 NTD for the whole day (for two).
The Gold Museum, however, was one component on this tour that can just as well be done independently by public transport.
From Taipei you first have to get a train to Ruifang Station (ca, 45 mins, 50-80NTD) and then a bus (line 1062 or 788) or a taxi – the fixed-rate taxi fare to Jinguashi is said to be a very affordable 270NTD (less than 8 euros).
If you’re driving yourself, enter the above locator for the Gold Museum Tourist Information Center into your GPS/NatNav device. You can find a car park right above the main entrance off Jinguang Rd./Ruijin Rd. The rest has to be done on foot.
Opening times of the museum: daily from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on weekdays and to 5.30 p.m. at weekends; closed every first Monday of the month and during Chinese New Year.
Admission: 80 NTD for the museum; Beishan Fifth Tunnel charges an extra 50NTD admission fee.
Time required: We spent well over an hour at this site (ca. 70 mins), but if you want to see and read everything beyond the dark aspects you will need more time than that.
Combinations with other dark destinations: Still within the town of Jinguashi is the memorial site for the Kinkaseki POW camp. From the Gold Museum it’s even walkable – if you don’t mind the steep stairways and winding roads and narrow alleyways. You’ll need satellite navigation to get through this labyrinthine maze of the old town.
Also reachable on foot is the location of the former main mining site of Beishan (this was where the POWs mainly worked). The place is also referred to as Jinguashi Geological Park on signs and maps.
A short drive away is the large abandoned industrial facility of Suwang-dong, the most fascinating structure associated with the area’s mining activities and a gem for those into industrial archaeology.
See also under Taiwan in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: The Gold Museum itself is in large parts rather a non-dark attraction. And in the surrounding lands there are various hiking trails with viewpoints as well as an assortment of shrines and temples.
For more see under Taiwan in general.
